Getting Started

Welcome to ServiSuite. This page gets you from zero to productive: what the system is, how the pieces connect from a customer’s first call through cash in the bank, where to start for your job, and — if you’re standing up a brand-new company — the order to configure things in.

Tip

If you just want to learn your way around the screen — the sidebar, your Home dashboard, Favorites, search grids, and saved views — read Working in SS2 first. This page is about what the system does and where your work fits; that page is about how to move around it.

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1. What ServiSuite is

ServiSuite is an all-in-one business system for field-service and contracting companies. Instead of separate tools for scheduling, invoicing, purchasing, payroll, and accounting, it keeps one shared set of records — customers, products, jobs, and the general ledger — so that work done in the field flows automatically into billing, and billing flows automatically into your books.

The system is organized into modules, each covering one area of the business:

Service Work orders, the dispatch board, appointments, service contracts, equipment, and flat-rate pricing

Job Costing Project contracts, estimates, cost tracking, progress billing, and closeout

CRM Leads, the sales pipeline, proposals, and customer communications

Accounts Receivable Customers, sales invoices, cash collection, deposits, and retention

Accounts Payable Vendors, bills, payment runs, check printing, and bank reconciliation

Inventory Purchasing, receiving, stock locations, allocation, and counts

Sales Orders & Invoices Selling products on their own — orders, shipments, and invoices

Payroll Timesheets, the time clock, payroll runs, and the employee portal

General Ledger Chart of accounts, journal entries, subledgers, cost centers, and period close

Reports Built-in and custom reports across every module

Administration & Utilities Users, roles, permissions, integrations, and operational tools

You almost certainly won’t use all of them. Which modules — and which screens inside them — appear in your sidebar depends on the permissions your administrator gives you and the features your company has turned on.

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2. How the pieces fit together

The modules aren’t islands. A single customer record, a single product, and a single general ledger are shared across the whole system, so records hand off from one module to the next without re-entry.

Most of what a field-service or contracting company does runs down one of two paths:

• Work order to cash — service calls, repairs, installs, and maintenance visits. Each job is a work order that’s scheduled, worked, invoiced once, and paid.
• Job to cash — larger projects run under a contract. Each project is a job that collects costs over weeks or months and is billed in installments as the work progresses.

The rest of the system — purchasing, payroll, and the general ledger — supports those two paths.

Work order to cash

Where work orders come from. A work order can start in any of these ways:

• A call or email. Someone in the office creates it directly in Service → Manage Work Orders with Create Work Order.
• A proposal. A salesperson quotes the work in CRM → Manage Proposals; Actions → Convert to Work Order opens a new work order with the customer and site filled in and lets you choose which of the proposal’s options to carry in as line items. (The proposal does not need to be approved first.)
• An online booking request. Requests from your website booking form or the customer portal land in Service → Booking Requests. Accepting a service request creates the work order and its appointment (and the customer and site, if they’re new).
• A service contract’s maintenance visits. Each service contract has scheduled checkups. Work orders for them aren’t created automatically when the date arrives — you create them when you’re ready, from Manage Checkups (Auto Create per checkup or in bulk) or for a whole month at once with Service → Schedule Work Orders.

1. Schedule it. Book one or more appointments and assign them to technicians by dragging them onto the Dispatch Board.
2. Do the work. The technician works the appointment — usually from the mobile app — and completes it, moving the work order to one of your company’s configured statuses. Parts and labor recorded on the work order are what get billed.
3. Invoice it. Invoice Work Order on the work order (Work Order Actions) asks for a Ledger Date and an Invoice Date (and optionally a Third Party Customer to bill someone else). It creates the customer invoice in Accounts Receivable, uses up the parts from inventory, and posts the revenue and cost to the ledger. A work order is invoiced once; to correct one, Credit Work Order reverses the billing so you can invoice it again (Work Order Bill Credit).
4. Get paid. Take payment on the spot with Manage Payments on the work order (card payments need the Stripe integration), record a check that arrives later in AR → Post Cash Receipt, or let customers pay online in the customer portal.
5. Deposit it. Group the day’s receipts into a bank deposit in AR → Post Deposit.

For a full walk-through, see Example 1: Creating and Invoicing a Repair Work Order.

Job to cash

1. Set up the job. Create it in Job Costing → Manage Jobs with Create Job — customer, site, job type, dates, and the retention percentage the customer will hold back. (Proposals currently convert only to work orders, so jobs are always created here.)

2. Add the contract. On the job’s Contracts tab, create the contract and choose how it will be billed. For Progress billing, the contract opens on its schedule of values — the list of billable lines you’ll bill against — already holding one line for the whole amount; split it if you need to (Job contracts and the schedule of values). Change orders are added from the contract with Add Change Order and go on the schedule as their own line once the customer approves them (Change orders).

3. Budget it. Enter the cost estimate by cost category in Job Costing → Manage Estimates — this is what actual costs are compared against.

4. Collect costs. Costs reach the job from four places:

   • vendor bills, by coding each line to the job in AP → Post Invoice;
   • stock issued from inventory in Job Costing → Post Job Materials;
   • one-off costs in Job Costing → Post Job Expense;
   • labor, from timesheet hours coded to the job, once payroll is processed.

   A work order can also be linked to a job; its invoice then counts toward the job’s billing, but its parts are not added to the job’s costs.

5. Bill as the work progresses. Each billing period, click Actions → Bill Job on the job and enter how far along each schedule-of-values line is (Posting a pay application). Posting creates the customer invoice in Accounts Receivable for the amount due, holding back retention on each line.

6. Get paid and release retention. Record payments in AR → Post Cash Receipt. When the customer releases the money they held back, Release Retention creates a retention release invoice for it (Retention holdback on job invoices).

7. Close the job. Job Costing → Close Job moves the job’s costs and contract revenue into their closing accounts. A closed job can be reopened if needed.

Supporting flows

Buying materials — purchase order → receive it (stock becomes available for work orders and jobs; goods that arrive without a purchase order go through Post Receiving) → record the vendor’s bill in AP → Post Invoice → pay it in Pay Invoices or with Issue Check → bank reconciliation.

Paying employees — hours go on timesheets or the time clock (hours can be tied to a work order or coded to a job) → approved timesheets sync into pay statements → Compute Payroll posts wages, taxes, and withholdings and produces direct-deposit and check payments.

Selling products without a work order — if you also sell goods on their own, use sales orders, shipments, and sales invoices, or post a one-off sale with AR → Post Sale. Most service companies bill almost everything through work orders and jobs instead.

Note

Notice the recurring pattern: operational work (invoicing a work order, a pay application, a receipt, a payroll run, a job cost) creates a financial document, and that document posts to the General Ledger — sometimes through an approval queue first. If you ever wonder “why did (or didn’t) this hit my books?”, the answer is almost always in General Ledger → Unapproved Postings or the ledger close dates.

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3. Your first login

When you sign in you land on your Home dashboard. The left sidebar lists the areas of the system, grouped the way the business is organized. Depending on your permissions and the features your company uses, you’ll see some or all of these:

• CRM — leads, proposals, and customer communications
• Service — work orders, dispatch, contracts, and equipment
• Orders — sales orders, shipping, and sales invoices
• Accounts Receivable — customers, sales, collections, and deposits
• Accounts Payable — vendors, bills, and payments
• Inventory — products, purchase orders, receiving, and stock
• Job Costing — jobs, estimates, costs, and billing
• Payroll — employees, timesheets, and payroll runs
• General Ledger — accounts, postings, subledgers, close dates, and the Business Overview dashboard
• Reports — built-in and custom reports
• Utilities — housekeeping tools
• Administration — users, roles, and system configuration

Most groups expand to a list of screens. The screen names used throughout these docs match the labels you’ll see in the sidebar. Above these groups the sidebar also keeps your Home dashboard, Favorites, Saved Grids, and Dashboards; below them sit the Employee Portal and links such as Documentation, Help, and — if your role has it — the Assistant, an AI helper that answers questions about your data, builds grids, and can prepare postings for you to approve (Working in SS2 → AI Assistant).

Tip

Before you dive into a module, spend five minutes on Working in SS2. It covers the parts of the screen that are identical everywhere — how to search and filter any list, save your own views, favorite the screens you use most, and build your Home dashboard — so you don’t have to relearn them module by module.

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4. Start here — find your path

You don’t need to read every module. Find the role closest to your job and start with the screens below, in order. Each links to the reference section for that screen.

Dispatcher / Service coordinator

1. Service → Dashboard — the day’s workload at a glance
2. Service → Dispatch Board — assign and schedule work
3. Service → Booking Requests — review and schedule online booking requests
4. Service → Manage Work Orders — create, update, and invoice work orders
5. Service → Search Appointments — find and adjust scheduled visits
6. Service → Schedule Work Orders — create the month’s service-contract maintenance work orders
7. Service → Print Invoices — print/reprint completed work orders’ invoices

Office / AR & billing

1. Accounts Receivable → Manage Customers
2. Service → Manage Work Orders — Invoice Work Order on completed work
3. Job Costing → Manage Jobs — Bill Job to bill a job
4. Accounts Receivable → View Customer Invoice
5. Accounts Receivable → Post Cash Receipt
6. Accounts Receivable → Post Deposit

AP clerk

1. Accounts Payable → Manage Vendors
2. Accounts Payable → Post Invoice
3. Accounts Payable → Pay Invoices
4. Accounts Payable → Issue Check
5. Accounts Payable → Bank Reconciliation

Bookkeeper / Accountant

1. General Ledger → Manage Ledger Accounts
2. General Ledger → Document Posting
3. General Ledger → Unapproved Postings — the approval queue
4. General Ledger → Manage Subledgers
5. General Ledger → Ledger Closing

Payroll admin

1. Payroll → Manage Employees
2. Payroll → Manage Timesheets
3. Payroll → Compute Payroll
4. Payroll → Settings

Inventory / Warehouse

1. Inventory → Manage Products
2. Inventory → Manage Purchase Orders
3. Inventory → Receive Purchase Order
4. Inventory → Post Receiving — goods received without a purchase order
5. Inventory → Allocate Inventory
6. Inventory → Move Inventory

Sales / CRM

1. CRM → Dashboard
2. CRM → Manage Leads
3. CRM → Manage Proposals
4. CRM → Manage Proposal Templates

Project manager (job costing)

1. Job Costing → Manage Jobs
2. Job Costing → Manage Estimates
3. Job Costing → Post Job Expense
4. Job Costing → Post Job Materials
5. Billing a Job — contract types, pay applications, change orders, time & material billing, and retention
6. Job Costing → Close Job

Administrator

1. Administration — users, roles, and permissions
2. General Ledger → Settings — the foundation the other modules depend on
3. Each module’s Settings screen — see the setup order in §5 below
4. Utilities — operational housekeeping tools

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5. Setting up a new organization

This section is for administrators standing up a brand-new company. Order matters: the later steps can’t be completed until the earlier ones exist.

Note

A new organization doesn’t start empty. It’s provisioned with a working starter set already in place: an Admin role and admin user, a standard chart of accounts, a default cost center, common payment types (Cash, Check, Credit Card, ACH) and customer terms (Due on Receipt, Net 30), a primary operating bank account, a warehouse location, default work-order and appointment statuses, and each module’s Settings pre-filled with those starter accounts. A company migrating from another system gets this from its imported data instead. So your job below is mostly to review and customize this starter set for your business — in the order that respects what depends on what.

1. Chart of accounts. Everything financial rests on this. Review your ledger categories (General Ledger → Manage Categories) and accounts (General Ledger → Manage Ledger Accounts) before touching any module settings, because the settings screens all point at these accounts.

2. General Ledger settings. General Ledger → Settings requires you to map each account category and to choose a Retained Earnings account, a Year-to-Date Income account, and a Master Close Date — so it can’t be saved until the accounts and categories in step 1 exist.

3. Cost centers. There are two kinds, and both depend on the accounts from step 1:

   • General Ledger → Manage Cost Centers — departments or divisions assigned to ledger accounts, so reports can be broken down by department.
   • Service → Settings → Cost Centers — the revenue and cost accounts that work order lines post to when a work order is invoiced. Each service type names a default one.

4. Close-date and posting controls. Set up your subledgers, posting configuration, and ledger close dates so postings land in the right places and closed periods are protected.

5. Each module’s settings. Every module has a Settings screen that requires its own general ledger accounts before it will save, and the module can’t post transactions until they’re set:

   • Accounts Receivable → Settings — sales, freight, discount, tax, inventory, cash, AR, and prepayment accounts, plus a default payment type and default customer terms.
   • Accounts Payable → Settings — payable, accrued-purchases, earned-discount, and prepayment accounts, plus default banks for paying invoices and issuing checks.
   • Inventory → Settings — a ship-from building, the suspense and variance accounts, and a costing method.
   • Service → Settings — default open and cancelled work-order statuses and related accounts.
   • Payroll → Settings — the employer-tax and payroll-accrual accounts and work-order pay types.
   • Job Costing → Settings and CRM → Settings — module defaults.

6. Payment types and terms. Extend the seeded payment types and customer terms to match how your customers pay (Accounts Receivable → Settings).

7. Banks. Confirm your operating and payroll bank accounts in General Ledger → Manage Banks; Accounts Payable’s payment defaults and your payment types point at them.

8. Roles and users. Beyond the seeded Admin, create the roles your team needs (with the right permissions) and add users in Administration. A user’s role decides which sidebar groups and screens they see.

9. Integrations and optional features. Turn on what you use — the customer portal, texting, and similar integrations are off by default until an administrator enables them — from Administration.

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6. Key terms to know first

A handful of terms carry the whole system. One line each here; the Glossary defines every term, and the linked reference section shows each in action.

Term	What it means	Learn more
Work Order	The central record for a service job — links a customer and site to the work, its appointments, and its billing.	Glossary · Service
Appointment	A scheduled time block on a technician’s calendar; a work order has one or more.	Glossary · Service
Dispatch Board	The drag-and-drop schedule where dispatchers assign work to technicians.	Glossary · Service
Service Contract / Checkup	A maintenance agreement with a customer; its checkups are the scheduled visits you turn into work orders.	Glossary · Service
Lead	A sales opportunity tracked through the pipeline toward won business.	Glossary · CRM
Proposal	A formal quote with selectable options that can convert into a work order.	Glossary · CRM
Purchase Order	An order to a vendor for goods you’re buying.	Glossary · Inventory
Receiving	Recording goods as they arrive against a purchase order, which puts stock on hand.	Glossary · Inventory
Allocation	Setting stock aside for a work order, job, sales order, or purchase order — first reserved (held so it can’t be used elsewhere), then allocated (physically staged for use).	Glossary · Inventory
Chart of Accounts	The full list of ledger accounts your finances post to.	Glossary · General Ledger
Cost Center	An organizational unit (department, division, branch) assigned to ledger accounts (other than root accounts), so reports can be broken down by department. Not the same as a service cost center, which sets the accounts work order lines post to.	Glossary · General Ledger
Subledger	A group of related postings (for example, everything AP posts) with its own open-date window that controls which posting dates it accepts.	Glossary · General Ledger
Posting / Unapproved Postings	Posting commits a transaction to the General Ledger; a posting dated outside an approval-type subledger’s open window waits in Unapproved Postings until someone approves it.	Glossary · General Ledger
Close dates	Each subledger’s Start/End Close Date window decides which posting dates it accepts; advancing it is how you lock a closed period. (The Master Close Date field in GL Settings is not what enforces this.)	Glossary · General Ledger
Job / Job Contract	A project tracked from contract through close, accumulating costs against an estimate.	Glossary · Job Costing
Schedule of Values	The list of billable lines on a job contract; each billing period you record how far along each line is.	Glossary · Job Costing
Pay Application	One progress bill on a job — posting it creates the customer invoice for that period’s work, less retention.	Glossary · Job Costing
Retention (Retainage)	A portion of a bill the customer holds back until the project is complete.	Glossary · Accounts Receivable
Timesheet	An employee’s hours for a pay period, which sync into payroll and job costs.	Glossary · Payroll
Key Off	Closing out a set of open invoices whose balances net to exactly $0.00 (typically an invoice and its credit memo) without any cash moving; no GL entries are posted.	Glossary · Accounts Payable

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7. Where to get help

• Glossary — every term used across the docs, with the module where it’s defined: Glossary.
• Module FAQs — each module doc ends with a Troubleshooting / FAQ section written around real symptoms (“I can’t save a sales order…”, “Why didn’t my posting hit the ledger?”) with the fix. Jump to the FAQ for the module you’re working in: Service · Accounts Receivable · Accounts Payable · Inventory · Job Costing · Payroll · General Ledger · CRM · Administration.
• Working in SS2 — for anything about navigating the screen itself: Working in SS2.